5th District Democratic hopefuls engage in online Open Debate

Tuesday

Aug 13, 2013 at 12:01 AMAug 13, 2013 at 1:14 PM

The first Open Debate hosted by the Progressive Change Campaign Committee for MA-5 happened on Saturday, Aug. 10. Members of the public submitted and voted on questions in this first-of-its-kind bottom-up, people-powered process.

The first Open Debate hosted by the Progressive Change Campaign Committee for MA-5 happened on Saturday, Aug. 10. Members of the public submitted and voted on questions in this first-of-its-kind bottom-up, people-powered process. People from around the country had a chance to read questions to the candidates, including a guest appearance by former resident and MSNBC host Steve Kornacki. Current Fifth District resident and U.S Sen. Elizabeth Warren encouraged her more than 87,000 followers on Twitter to participate.

Full downloadable audio of the debate is available here: https://soundcloud.com/mediacall/pccc-ma-05-open-debate

Key Takeaways:

4 out of 5 candidates pledged to vote against any cuts to Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid benefits.

4 out of 5 candidates support expanding Social Security benefits.

4 out of 5 candidates support Sen. Warren’s approach to U.S.-government backed loans to students

5 out of 5 candidates believe the government should not profit from student loans

4 out of 5 candidates supported a constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United.

5 out of 5 candidates support Elizabeth Warren’s bill to re-instate Glass-Steagall

4 out of 5 candidates voiced support for prosecuting bankers for their wrongdoings

3 out of 5 candidates support single-payer health care now

4 out of 5 candidates support Medicare-For-All

5 out of 5 candidates consider addressing the problem of climate change a priority

5 out of 5 candidates believe we need to address the issue of government surveillance

Key quotes from the debate:

Will you pledge to oppose cuts to Social Security and Medicare benefits (and sign on to expand these programs)?

State Sen. Katherine Clark: I will pledge not to cut Social Security and Medicare ... we made a promise that people who worked hard and put their money into Social Security are going to be able to receive those benefits.”

Clark: “I want to be crystal clear that I am taking a pledge to never to cut benefits to our seniors through Social Security, Medicare, or Medicaid.”

State Rep. Carl Sciortino: “I am completely committed to blocking any cuts to Social Security and Medicare. In fact, one of my very first acts in this campaign was to sign, as a citizen signer, the Grayson-Takano letter — the letter that pledges to block any cuts to Social Security and Medicare and opposes Chained CPI.”

Sciortino: “As costs go up, we need to increase Social Security. And if we increase it less by Chained CPI, that is nothing more than a cut. I think everyone in this race would be wise, given the national debate around Social Security, to sign on to the Grayson-Takano letter to make it clear that we will defend Social Security at all costs.”

State Sen. William Brownsberger: “I will pledge to vote against anything that actually cuts Social Security benefits for existing retirees. I will make that pledge. But I think there’s a whole lot of other things out there that I think fall well short of that people are calling cuts and are not cuts.”

Brownsberger: “I don’t consider Chained CPI a cut in benefits. I want to be clear on that.”

State Sen. Karen Spilka: “I clearly do not take pledges lightly, and they will be few and far between should I be so lucky to be elected to Congress. I will be on record, right here and now, I will never vote for any bill that cuts Social Security, Medicare, or Medicaid benefits.”

Middlesex County Sheriff Peter Koutoujian: “Cutting the safety net for so many, whether it is Medicare or Social Security, is a place I will not go.”

Koutoujian: “I disagree with the President on the idea of chaining CPI because I believe that in the end that will also cut benefits to those who need them most.”

Do you support expanding Social Security benefits:

Brownsberger: Honestly, no. Benefit expansion would be great, but I don’t think it’s realistic to talk about in the world we live in right now. It’s not something I’d say I am going to go fight for because it’s not something we can really do.”

Spilka: “I believe that we should increase benefits.”

Clark: “I also support looking at expanding Social Security benefits. Social Security is one of the very best programs we have to address low income issues.”

Sciortino: “We have records in the state legislature and if we’re going to talk about the importance of retirement security, we don’t need to look much farther than the debates that we’ve had in the state legislature in the last few years on public employee unions. In fact, we had a very challenging debate where Democrats in Massachusetts, after Scott Walker did what he did in Wisconsin cutting benefits for public employees, we had Democrats in this state and in this race and in this state legislature that voted the pension benefits and increase the retirement age for pensioners. I opposed that.”

Koutoujian: “You can’t make it by on $14,000 a year. I would be very interested in being able to expand those benefits if it were appropriate.”

Do you support Senator Warren’s approach to US government loans to college students, including, among other things, the principle that the US government should not be making money off of the college student loan program?

Spilka: “100 percent in agreement, we need to make affordable.”

Spilka: “Government should not be making a single penny off of our children, and I would even support zero-interest loans”

Koutoujian: “I believe that we need a fixed rate for student loans at the lowest possible rate … No one should profit on the backs of students.”

Brownsberger: “I support the compromise that Congress agreed on, Democrats and Republicans agreed on together to tie the rates to the financial markets. I don’t think it would be responsible to hand out loans at zero interest rates. When you have a program that has 13 percent default rates you are going to be losing money.”

Clark: “There is absolutely no reason why our students should be loaned money at higher interest rates than we are willing to give our big banks.”

Follow-up: Should the U.S. government be making money off college student loans?

Clark: “No.”

Sciortino: “Absolutely not.”

Spilka: “Absolutely not.”

Koutoujian: “I agree with Senator Warren, absolutely not.”

Brownsberger: “Absolutely not, but I don’t agree with Senator Warren on the economics of this. If you have a system where 13 percent of the people are not paying the loans back, you have to charge some interest to cover those default rates.”

Sciortino: “I see higher education as a public good. I think we should be investing in our students, investing in their education. If that costs us tax revenue to pay for that education, I think we should be pursuing that. And when Senator Warren proposes that we don’t charge above the cost, what I hear Senator Brownsberger suggesting is that students that are paying off loans should also be responsible for paying off the defaulted loans of other students. I think that’s unfair.”

Will you vote for Elizabeth Warren’s 21st Century Glass Steagall act if the bill is introduced in the House? And will you support breaking up the “Banks that are TOO BIG TO FAIL”?

Clark: I absolutely agree with Elizabeth Warren and bringing back the new Glass-Steagall. This is a lesson we should have learned in 1933 when this act first came into place: Separating the investment part of banking from the commercial banking makes sense.

Brownsberger: This is one where I do strongly agree with Elizabeth Warren and agree with Senator Clark, we need to separate the activities of basic responsible commercial lending, residential lending from speculative activities”

Why are BANKERS not prosecuted for their wrongdoings?

Koutoujian: “It’s not just about prosecuting or companies, it is about justice ... We are letting people buy themselves off with big money and they’re walking ... that’s just wrong and that’s not justice.

“We need to go back and take another look at how we treat those that are wealthy and those that are privileged, and those of the 99 percent, the rest of us, that don’t have that much money, that we don’t consider to be privileged, we all have our basic rights. And it is wrong that the federal authorities didn’t prosecute the people who were actually making those policies.”

Are you willing to push for progressive single-payer health care?

Sciortino: Right now we have over 50 million people uninsured, I think Obamacare a long way. But I think the only way to bring adequate, affordable, quality health care to every resident of this country, I believe is single-payer.

Spilka: I do support single-payer, and I believe that we as a country are moving towards it. I do believe, in the interim at least, that we should have a strong public option.”

Koutoujian: “We need to finish off what we’re doing with the Affordable Care Act and health reform in Massachusetts. It’s working. I don’t think we need to change in the middle of this stream. We need to see this through.”

Brownsberger: “When someone says, ‘Are you for Medicare-For-All’? No I am not. Because that’s the old way. The way we need to do is sort of more like what Hillary Clinton constructed in the ’90s was a managed care concept.”

Where do you stand on overturning Citizens United with a Constitutional Amendment such as the one proposed by MoveToAmend.org and public financing of elections?

Sciortino: I am adamantly opposed to the Citizens United opinion. Does anyone really think that in our democracy corporations don’t have enough influence or have enough power? I certainly don’t ... In the next decade, if we want to make progress on climate change, on increasing the minimum wage, on protecting women’s equality or LGBT equality, or so many other issues that affect our country’s future, the Citizens United decision has the potential to do serious damage to our democracy.”

Brownsberger: “I do support the Citizens United case ... On Citizens United, all of our civil liberties come with downsides. It would make it a lot easier for the police to arrest criminals if we didn’t give criminals rights. And that would affect our rights. And in the same way, if we sweep away the protections of the First Amendment because we want to shut up the Koch brothers, and I want to shut up the Koch brothers and these other wealthy individuals making contributions to campaigns ... we’re also going to sweep away the protections for corporations like Planned Parenthood, Sierra Club and others.

Do you understand the serious threat of climate disruption and will you work hard to fend off global warming?

Clark: “All the issues that we talk about — all the values that we care about as progressives — if we do not address climate change and take swift and strong action to prevent it, we are not going to have the economy, the agriculture, the public health to do any of those other things. It absolutely has to be the top-priority issue.”

Koutoujian: “The fact is that 2012 was the hottest year on record in the United States. This is a trend that is continuing and alarming. I applaud Congressman Markey for all of the work that he did ... All of us will be affected by this, whether it is our children or our grandchildren. And who will be most affected? Poorer, more diverse communities.”

What are you going to do to end NSA massive surveillance on all of us?

Brownsberger: “I think the President is moving in the right direction on this ... I think increased oversight of the intelligence operation — opening that up — is the first step.”

Clark: “I am deeply concerned about the warrentless invasion of privacy into our emails, our telephone calls. I think Congress needs to take oversight of this and really look into what is going on with these programs.”

Sciortino: “I believe the NSA’s action of spying on its own citizens is a violation of the 4th Amendment ... I think a progressive democrat from this district has an obligation, whether it is republican administration or a democratic administration, to stand up for civil liberties, to support the right of privacy, and to make sure that the government is not overreaching into our personal lives.”